Sunday, June 7, 2015

Education funding: Why does Arizona settle for scraps?

Julie Erfle (Politics Uncuffed) takes well-deserved digs at Il Duce's plan for funding education. Remember that one? We'll raid the principal (land trust) to pay the interest (piddling amount for K-12). And then only if the voters do it. And isn't curious that all this comes on the heels of the census report putting AZ dead last in per pupil funding? And isn't it curious that the amount Duce proposes is almost exactly that which the AZ idioture refuses to pay? Also check David Safier's critique at The Range.

From Erfle's blog:

At what point will our leaders – both legislative and business leaders – have the courage (and smarts) to realize that if all you do is take from your most precious resource, they won’t have anything to give in return? At what point will they focus on long-term strategies to strengthen our state instead of focusing on band-aid approaches to the crises that have been years in the making?

I’m not giving the Governor or his supporters a hand for one more sad attempt at snowing voters into believing they’re serious about putting Arizona kids first. If they truly care about Arizona’s kids… let me say that again… ARIZONA’S KIDS… then they’ll do more than throw a few scraps their way.

At the very least, our kids are deserving of average. That means we’ll need to prioritize education over additional tax cuts. It might even mean we roll back some of our tax cuts. (Gasp!)

We’re almost a third below the nation’s average for education funding. More than $3,000 behind. We can’t afford to mess around with these little small-brained, low-bar gimmicks that are nothing more than feel-good measures. Our kids deserve better. Our state deserves better.